Try this on for size: Between the wars, at its pinnacle in the 20th century, Britain exerted dominion over almost half a billion people. Yes, yes, it would all go completely to crap in less than 50 years and leave us associating the UK with the likes of the Spice Girls, Simon Cowell and Amy Winehouse. Imperialists all, in their own ways, but not exactly the same thing. Anyway, the sheer global vastness of the Pax Britannica is not something that exits collectively memory all that quickly, even as the land of King Arthur and Winston Churchill sheds assets like they were going out of style. We hinted at this development in our Question Of The Day, which focused on increasingly mighty Tata Motors and the matter of whom they should next acquire, after Jaguar and Land Rover. Which of course brings us to the realignment of power and influence that's currently afoot, and to our COTD.